Kenny Everett

[Twilkes]

I always remember the nod to Kenny Everett in Smashie & Nicey's End Of An Era special (one of the best denouements of a comedy character(s), a lot of the material was on par or better than the stuff they'd done previously). I don't know how accurate or unfair to KE's TV show this segment was, maybe someone more worldly wise could chip in, I was probably 7 or 8 during the mid-80s broadcasts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP67GQoII5M#t=33m29s

[ajsmith2]

I always felt that Smashie and Nicey parody was a little reductive and unfair, making him out to be a stale, witless relic of a pre-enlightened time. Not that there wasn't a significant amount of accuracy to their parody but he was a lot more than that, and in 1993 with his glory days over and his days numbered through the diagnosis by that point it seemed a bit like kicking him when he was down. Prob being overly defensive here, I dunno but it's just always the way it struck me with the timing. (And I love End Of An Era ftr)

[Phoenix Lazarus]

His BBC TV show was unfunny from 1983.

[TheMonk]

His BBC TV show was unfunny from 1983.

People say this but in retrospect a lot of the ITV show was just telling old jokes in wigs in front of a white screen. It had its charm but it wasn't particularly brilliant. The BBC show had some entertaining enough sketches.

[ajsmith2]

The ITV show had the 'televised radio show' music format and energy that likely casts a kinder light on weak gag material than when it's left exposed on a primarily comedy focussed programme. Also cartoon Cpt Kremmen.

[Alberon]

I watched his BBC shows on repeat on UK Gold some years back, and I did like them. I sort of remember one episode opening on him driving onto the set in a Sinclair C5 before accidentally killing some of the camera crew.

And Reg Prescott was a favourite back when I was a kid. The more blood and brutal injuries the better.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Do you remember the Kenny Everett Video Show used to regularly feature a blackface cartoon saying the longest place name on earth, which later turned out to be the introduction to Quantum Jump's Lone Ranger song?

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

Do you remember the Kenny Everett Video Show used to regularly feature a blackface cartoon saying the longest place name on earth, which later turned out to be the introduction to Quantum Jump's Lone Ranger song?

Some memories are best left forgotten :(

That said, I was watching the Kenny Everett Video Shows being repeated on That's TV and found myself laughing at a surprising amount of the content. He was definitely a pioneer.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Some memories are best left forgotten :(

That said, I was watching the Kenny Everett Video Shows being repeated on That's TV and found myself laughing at a surprising amount of the content. He was definitely a pioneer.

I liked it much more than his BBC series, especially the later ones.  I preferred bits of Kenny being silly broken up by several music videos to a show that was ninety percent full comedy sketches with just one studio pop group performance in the middle.  In fact, they got rid of the music act completely in the late-80s, if I recall rightly.

[Spudgun]

I've always been a big fan of Kenny's, to the point that I'm surprised that the balance in this thread seems slightly more against than for. I mean, I know not everyone liked him, but I thought his talents were near enough universally acknowledged. Live and learn.

. . . in retrospect a lot of the ITV show was just telling old jokes in wigs in front of a white screen. It had its charm but it wasn't particularly brilliant.

I think it was always more about the tone than the material itself. He was anarchic, innovative, and an absolute natural when it came to getting a daft laugh out of nothing.

His BBC TV show was unfunny from 1983.

This, though, isn't far from the truth at all. Kenny's first BBC series was very high quality, the second dwindled a bit, and then at some point the comedy just fell off a cliff. The innovation was gone, the jokes got a lot cheaper, and, by the end, it could have been just any other sketch show of the era we could have been watching.

I suppose what I'm saying is that, when Kenny was his own boss, he was just naturally funny. One of the greatest broadcasters ever. He made DJing an artform, and no-one else comes close. A full-on sketch show was unsustainable, though, and his personal difficulties also played their part.

I still rate Kenny exceptionally highly.

[non capisco]

Vivid memory of seeing that "Spider-Man needing a piss" sketch when it first went out and nearly hyperventilating with laughter to the point where my dad had to calm me down. What year is that from? (I could work it out because I was, of course, 28 years old at the time.)

Watching it back that sketch is made by the superhero jump pose he does when he gets to the urinal.

[Blumf]

Just stumbled on this 1988 promo for CD Video presented by Kenny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOAeEf4D0dU

Sound is terrible, because of media rot, and it's not particularly funny/interesting, but for completeness, there you go.

[Alberon]

For some reason this sketch really stuck in my mind from all those years ago. Leans far too heavily on Jewish stereotypes to be comfortable now, but I used to find it the funniest thing ever. I think it was the music, but why I've no idea.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1634649233317432

[pupshaw]

I still rate Kenny exceptionally highly.

Absolutely. Captain Kremmen is brilliant. I'm old enough to remember his Capital Radio days and the number of jingles he seemed to only use once was amazing, but they probably only took him 5-10 minutes to create. I remember one where he played a bunch of electronic beeps and "computer noises" and just voiced over "let's ask the Capital Computer if we can play some electronic Bach... and by golly the answer is yes" probably a couple of minutes work, and tossed away. he was a good voice actor, his accents were silly but his voice just sounded funny

Edit: I remember the computer jingle was actually even better. He took a bunch of cut up tapes of announcers saying numbers and mixed them together speeded up. Fantastic effect and I can hear it in my head nearly 50 years later.

I loved him, and the way he was treated by the Murdoch press when he was dying is fucking rotten.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

I always felt that Smashie and Nicey parody was a little reductive and unfair, making him out to be a stale, witless relic of a pre-enlightened time. Not that there wasn't a significant amount of accuracy to their parody but he was a lot more than that, and in 1993 with his glory days over and his days numbered through the diagnosis by that point it seemed a bit like kicking him when he was down. Prob being overly defensive here, I dunno but it's just always the way it struck me with the timing. (And I love End Of An Era ftr)

Maybe I'm misreading the intent, but I've always felt the target of that sketch wasn't supposed to be Kenny necessarily, but fictional DJ Dave Nice and what he would do if given an Everett Video Show style vehicle. But then again, some of the digs at other R1 jocks are particularly vicious and pointed so I could be wrong.

[ajsmith2]

KE reviews the singles of April 1968. This Yesterdays Papers channel do a good line in these robot voiced adaptations of the Blind Date columns you used to get in 60s music papers esp as they actually play the records. I do think this one suffers a bit from losing the nuances of how Kenny would have said this stuff though: the repeated 'take it off' s would undoubtedly have been good humouredly campy irl for instance.